Alcohol and Your Therapy Doc

This one is for you budding therapy docs.

But it's really a response to one of you who commented saying that I'm awfully harsh about alcohol consumption.

There's transference, then there's outright permission.

I feel that I can never give permission to a person's potentially dysfunctional behavior. Therefore, when I talk about alcohol consumption with patients (or with you on the blog), the subject is sobering.

And I'm sober.

And that's the message that you need to communicate, as well, to your patients, clients, etc., to be sure that you have not, in any way, enabled, encouraged, contributed to alcoholic drinking. You don't drink. You don't use drugs.

Then there's the whole sex thing. You can't be seductive, either. Not in any way. You have to watch how you dress, watch what you say.

These are things you should learn in your graduate school training, but just in case you don't, I thought it important for you to know.

As far as your patients are concerned, You don't drink, and you don't use drugs, and you'll probably live longer for it (you hope).

Now, seduction is something we can talk about.

Like drinking, it's safest in moderation and at home with somebody you love, preferably a committed partner, not a blood relative. And talking in code is good, assuming both of you know the code, that is.

Copyright 2007, therapydoc

The first Carnival of Alcohol and Relationships

The first (that I know of) CARNIVAL OF ALCOHOL AND RELATIONSHIPS IS A DRUG AND ALCOHOL FREE ZONE.

We'll go with the natural high, expanding the brain with good communication.
Crazy, I know, I know.

Funny that we should celebrate this first carnival on the eve of the eve of the Passover holiday. Passover is the quintessential celebration of freedom (from Egyptian slavery, 1500 B.C.E. , after 210 years of slavery, if you paid attention in Sunday school)

So here's another equation:

RECOVERY FROM SUBSTANCE DEPENDENCY/ABUSE = FREEDOM, too.

Many of the contributors to this carnival would agree.

May 13, 2007 will be the first CARNIVAL OF ALL SUBSTANCES, and any of you can post a story about your experiences, thoughts, relationships, with a person, drug, favorite person, favorite drug, favorite drug of a favorite person, whatever you like.

This and future carnivals should serve deterrents, not cocktails.

If your mother hasn't told you already, Drugs are Bad.

Without further ado,

Nael, at Another Door Opens writes a beautiful post about friendship He makes it clear that well-intentioned friends don't necessarily understand that owning responsibility for the past is key.

Relentless writes about being Daddy's little girl and suffering the wrath of her mother in an anniversary post

MEG, at You and Me and Floating on a Tidal Wave, writes a very sad story about her daughter's relationship with her uncle, and how three lives were interrupted and changed forever due to alcoholism. A must read, Uncle Randy.

Then she follows it up with a post on her father, and then another on mom. Thank you so much, Meg. These are beautiful posts and we can all learn from them. I certainly did.

Syd at I'm Just Fine is an adult child of an alcoholic married to an alcoholic who writes about his life. He goes to Al-Anon and writes a beautiful post he calls The Alcoholic Love Relationship: I've heard it said over and over that co-dependents, especially those who had alcoholic parents, are attracted to alcoholics. . . I realize that I've spent a long time making others happy and what I now want to do is make myself happy. You're going to like the new glasses, Syd.

In a second post on self-worth, having been criticized harshly by his father, he writes: We hid our feeling of self-worth deep within, and our perspective became distorted. Many of us even tried to conceal that we felt worthless on the inside to the point that we couldn't show any real warmth and concern for anyone, including ourselves. Then: if someone really doesn't like the way I am, then there needs to be communication that is clear and a discussion that is rational and loving

You never have those conversations, by the way, when someone is impaired.

Pat Santy,or Dr. Sanity, our resident psychiatrist posts the best description of enabling I've ever seen. She doesn't mind stretching the metaphor to terrorism, either. Check it out.

Brave Giant Mark, at DrinkandDrugNoMore has something to say to teens who have to make a choice: What if you like it? Then what?

J.D. at VicariousRising wrote a heartbreaker about how people really do kick the dog, includes a great clip from the movie, Fame.

Noor, Malaysia's First Recovery Blogger, writes about his heroic recovery from heroin in prison tired of smoking drugs, I preferred to stay in prison.

Jen, at StayAtHomeMotherdom tried to adopt and was outed as an alcoholic to the agency. This was the first major issue in my life that I learned to relinquish and accept. I learned gradually overtime that I didn't need to retaliate. Read her story.

LushGirl at A Day in the Life of YoMamma in Whine and Song, Why Now writes about the challenge of working a program AND raising a troubled teenager. She's blaming herself, but seems to this doc, is doing the best she can.

Little Miss Mel on the same theme, blogs about confusing someone who is "difficult" with someone who is a difficult alcoholic".

Kevin, at the Creative Power of Thought, on the Laws of Attraction, thinks that it is a person's negative thinking that brings on negative outcomes in life, and doesn't buy the victim-hood rationale for drinking: There are far more constructive forms of coping with life challenges than alcohol poisoning. Oh yes, Kevin

Dr. Hal, a life coach at NorthStar Mental Fitness says in his post that "The first step to learning how to take care of yourself is to admit that you don't want to take care of yourself and you want adult pacifiers to take care of you." Wow. He'll beat the denial out of you! As he should, as he should.

Paul E. Coughlin presents Alcohol useage posted at Paul E. Coughlin at SaneThinking.com, saying, "Alcohol is not really an enemy so much as a poison. Enemies can be feared but poisons? Hardly. Who in their right mind wants to poison oneself?"

Lola's written a long story with surprise twists for those who can hang in there long enough at L'Undone.

And Joyce, at JoySoriano.com has a different prayer one might consider

TherapyDoc presents Alcoholics Anonymous (A. A.) and W.S.J. posted at Everyone needs therapy, asks "WSJ says AA is okay. Is it?"

Caroline, at SharpBrains thinks that all you need to do is reduce your stress and you'll be just fine. I don't buy it, but okay, take a look.

That concludes this edition. Thanks to all of you who visited and participated. Submit your blog article for the May 13 edition to The Carnival of All Substances.